Here I finally am with the first issue I've managed to get out this whole year, and the year is already almost half over! I certainly hope you will find it worth the wait, and maybe even be inspired to veer off the beaten path into uncharted movie territory! This issue's guest writer is David Lichtenstein, who wrote the review for Prizzi's Honor.

ON SCREEN:

TWO GIRLS AND A GUY: It sounds like some cute sitcom plot, but trust me, that's not at all what this movie is about. Two young women, one streetwise (Natasha Gregson Wagner) and one philosophical (Heather Graham), meet each other while waiting for their boyfriends to arrive at a Manhattan apartment from an audition in Los Angeles. They begin to make small talk, and soon realize that they in fact have the same boyfriend, a clever, rakish young actor with a mother complex (Robert Downey, Jr.). When the boyfriend finally shows up, they are both understandably furious, but on another level are simply puzzled and frustrated about why he would deceive them (especially after he tells them "mistakes were made"--well, OK, that part was a joke). This probably sounds about as entertaining as the Thirty Years' War, but it actually held my attention much longer than I expected, eventually probing into the motivations of all three characters and getting much more complex than you would expect. Downey stayed away from the crack long enough to turn in a credible performance (and he is just charming enough to make us believe the women could fall for him), and the gorgeous Graham fulfills the high expectations I had for her after seeing her in Swingers and Boogie Nights. Wagner isn't too bad either, although she does not have her costars' gift for nuance. The problem is that the details of the plot, and the characters' actions, get harder and harder to believe as the plot wears on. There is also too much self-conscious staginess; the actor has a poster of Jules and Jim on his wall (get it?), and the claustrophobic set leads one to wonder if this story might have been told better as a play than a movie, which is unusual for something that started life on celluloid. While this review sounds (and is) fairly negative, I would actually like someone else to see this, so that I can compare notes. (It's that kind of a film.)

ON TAPE:

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL: It's incredibly easy to get caught up and swept away in this breezy and fun English comedy, which sees life as an endless series of Big Events like weddings and funerals. Charles, a likable, smart, and charming bloke (played by Hugh Grant, of course) is at the center of the action, a seemingly perpetual best man or entertaining guest at the weddings of his friends and associates, but never the groom at his own. Then, a mysterious American journalist (Andie MacDowell) comes into his life--at a wedding, of course--and his normally smooth self starts to get all aflutter. We all know where this is leading, but the script fails to get us there because MacDowell's character just isn't interesting enough for Grant's. His friends are much more fun, and they are what make the movie worth watching, not this woman. (While Andie's lackluster acting abilities don't help this situation much, I think that the main problem is with a script that refuses to flesh her character out. I have seen her in other movies, namely Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Object of Beauty, and I think that she, like other actors who are not outstanding, can do a decent enough job given the right character.) The aforementioned friends all turn in good performances, but my favorites are the amiable Matthew, the hilarious and aptly named Gareth (sorry, lost these actors' names), and the cynical Fiona (played to a T by Kristin Scott Thomas, before she went on to greater fame in The English Patient). Watch closely after the funeral for a subtle change. A major complaint: there is way too much cursing, implying that the filmmakers thought the movie had to contain a certain amount of profanity to be bankable.

TERMINATOR 2: This might astonish some of you, but I am a fan of the Terminator movies. No matter how much you look down on Ahnold's (admittedly limited) acting abilities, you have to admit--at least if you're like me--that you are kept absolutely on the edge of your seat. I am normally not a big fan of sequels, but in this case, I think that the second opus is actually better than the first. The sequel has more meat on the bones of its plot, Ahnold is better playing a sympathetic character, the special effects are showy but are nevertheless used to great effect, and Linda Hamilton (playing Sarah Conner, the unfortunate woman caught in the throat of history at the center of both movies) has become a hard-bitten, cynical survivor. A basic idea of the plot: the first Terminator movie had Arnold--a robotic assassination machine--sent back in time to the 1980's by the computers who had become overlords of the world a century later. His mission: to kill the mother of John Conner, the leader of the rebel humans challenging their rule in the future. Part Two has Arnold as a good guy, sent back by the grown John Conner to ward off a deadly improved Terminator made of instantly malleable steel (a special effect done believably in most sequences). If you ever get a chance to see this one on a screen at a repertory theater, give it a try, and be sure to bring me along with you. I suspect that that may be the best way to see it.

PRIZZI'S HONOR: There have been "mob" films since long before 1972's The Godfather; some have been good and some bad, and a few have tried to insert humor into the formula. These are very few, however, and Prizzi's Honor is a fine examply of why it is a bad idea. None of the characters are the least bit sympathetic, nor are the plots (particularly the romances) even slightly credible. All of the actors involved have done good, even exceptional, work in other films (especially Kathleen Turner in War of the Roses and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) but their acting in this movie seems limited to reading from cue cards. The direction merely reminded me, perhaps unintentionally, of better movies I'd rather be watching. The movie does strive for greatness and includes on genuinely funny line, but that did not prevent me from coming away from my viewing feeling that there were far better ways I could have spent my 130 minutes.

.PRET-A-PORTER (READY TO WEAR): The only Robert Altman film I have ever seen is M*A*S*H. Just as that film relentlessly savaged everything that was foolish and incongruous about war, Pret-a-Porter skewers--or at least tries to skewer--the monstrous egos and pretensions of the high-fashion industry. It's recognizable as an Altman film because it uses the same devices--episodic structures, quick cuts after punchlines, and lots and lots of characters, far more than anyone can relate to or follow (I'll make a short list of the actors for the fun of it: Marcello Mastroianni, Julia Roberts, Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall, Tim Robbins, Tracey Ullmann, Sally Kellerman, Danny Aiello, Stephen Rea, Forest Whitaker, Linda Hunt, Richard E. Grant from Henry and June, Rupert Everett from My Best Friend's Wedding, Anouk Aimee, Terri Garr, Naomi Campbell, and Marcello's attractive daughter, Chiara Mastroianni). The most interesting one is perhaps Kim Basinger, a ditzy reporter for an American cable channel covering the Paris scene who seems to have a knack for empty-headed phrases that unintentionally deflate their pompous subjects (her best line is at the end). The elder Mastroianni, playing an obscure tailor from Moscow on the trail of his first love, an industry maven (Loren), is also important as the thin thread holding all the disparate elements of the plot together. As with M*A*S*H, all this chaos produces a thoroughly enjoyable film that can easily carry you away as an ocean does an unmoored boat. Unfortunately, the film does not succeed at being what it most wants to be--a devastatingly funny satire--because it just isn't devastating or funny enough (occasionally, however, it's a scream). Part of the problem is that the existence of pomposity and greed in the fashion industry and media is not exactly any great revelation. I think Robert Altman fans will love this one; others should bring their sense of adventurousness with them, and not expect any great social commentary, just a good time. The ending is really smashing.

END NOTES: Myles was kind enough recently to loan me two more videotapes of Mystery Science Theatre; they contained two bombs with perhaps the most ridiculous titles ever given to any movies (and the titles, of course, are just the start): The Thing That Wouldn't Die and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. (I don't like quoting other movie critics, but Leonard Maltin said it best with respect to The Incredible...: "This movie does not live up to its name. How could it?") On a more high-culture note, I finally went to a Filmfest DC event this year, a terrific German film called Beyond Silence, starring a well-known deaf American actor named Howie Seago. I heartily recommend checking out the festival next year (this year, it ran in late April and early May) and also catching that film when it hits the theatres this June--I will try (with emphasis on that word try!) to finish a review of it in time for my next issue...
 
 
 
 
 
 

TONY